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(Heb. Asaph', àָñָ Š, assembler; Sept. Á᾿óÜö ), the names of three persons. SEE EBIASAPH.
1. A Levite of the family of Gershom (see below), son of Barachiah (1Ch_6:39; 1Ch_15:17), eminent as a musician, and appointed by David to preside over the sacred choral services which he organized (1Ch_16:5), B.C. 1014. The "sons of Asaph" are afterward mentioned as choristers. of the Temple (1Ch_25:1-2; 2Ch_20:14; 2Ch_29:13; Ezr_2:41; Ezr_3:10; Neh_7:44; Neh_11:22); and this office appears to have been made hereditary in his family (1Ch_25:1-2). Asaph was celebrated in after times as a prophet ( äֹæֶä , seer) and poet (2Ch_29:30; Neh_12:46), and the titles of twelve of the Psalms (50, 73, to 83) bear his name, in some of which he evidently stands (as a patronymic, Neh_11:17) for the Levites generally (see Huetii Demonstr. ev. p. 332; Bertholdt, v, 1956; Herder, Ebr. Poesie, ii, 331; comp. Niemeyer, Charakterist. 4:356 sq.; Carpzov, Introd. 103 sq.; Eichhorn, Einl. v, 17 sq.); or he may have been the founder of a school of poets and musical composers, who were called after him " the sons of Asaph" (comp. the Homeridae). SEE PSALMS. The following is his ancestry (see Reinhard, De Asapho, Vien. 1742).
2. The "father" of Joah, which latter was "recorder" in the time of Hezekiah (2Ki_18:18; 2Ki_18:37; Isa_36:3; Isa_36:22). B.C. ante 726. Perhaps i. q. No. 1. 3. A "keeper of the king's forests" (prob. in Lebanon), to whom Nehemiah requested of Artaxerxes Longimanus an order for timber to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem (Neh_2:8). B.C. 446.